Platform of the Sociolinguistics of Scriptality (SoS) research group

Aldus Manutius

I just learnt that today is the day of the semicolon. Well, at least in Sweden this contentious little punctuation mark is celebrated every year on the 6th of February. The motive is that it is the day when Aldus Manutius died in 1515 (so today 500 years ago!), and he was the one who established the modern use of the semicolon (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aldus_Manutius).
But then I looked around, and found that there are also at least another two semicolon days out there: the 16th of April people around the globe tatoo semicolons on their wrists in order to present hope and love to those who are struggling with depression, suicide, addiction and self-injury (http://www.projectsemicolon.com/); and the 24th of September the semicolon is celebrated on the National Punctuation Day in the US (http://www.nationalpunctuationday.com/semicolon.html).

It’s fascinating to think about what a wide array of adaptations, meanings and values that can be ascribed to one single punctuation mark 😉